DW vs sh series

[convoy hunter]

Hello all:salute:
if you have seen sh5 it is perfect. But why ubisoft doesn't make a series of modern subs like sh5. To make them more famous.

[Dr.Sid]

Maybe because they are Russian and they don't want to be the bad guys ? :rotfl2:

[TLAM Strike]

Because Ubisoft doesn't have access to the data and talent that SCS has. :ping:

Sonalysts makes simulations for the US Navy! :rock:

[Bilge_Rat]

I reinstalled DW w. LWAMI 3.09 over the weekend. DW is still a great subsim, much more realistic than any of the SH series. I had forgotten how much staring at a green waterfall display could hold my interest...:ping:

Different philosophy however.

I would love to see a next gen DW, with graphics and a full 3d interior as in SH5, but I am not holding my breath...:ping:

[TLAM Strike]

I reinstalled DW w. LWAMI 3.09 over the weekend. DW is still a great subsim, much more realistic than any of the SH series. I had forgotten how much staring at a green waterfall display could hold my interest...:ping: Keep it installed. 3.10 should be out in a few weeks.

I would love to see a next gen DW, with graphics and a full 3d interior as in SH5, but I am not holding my breath...:ping: Unfortunately some of the compartments you see in full 3d in SH5, if the same treatment was done to modern subs in DW2 SCS would need to shoot anyone who played the game. :O:

[Bilge_Rat]

Unfortunately some of the compartments you see in full 3d in SH5, if the same treatment was done to modern subs in DW2 SCS would need to shoot anyone who played the game. :O:

so true...:rotfl2::rotfl2:

[convoy hunter]

I reinstalled DW w. LWAMI 3.09 over the weekend. DW is still a great subsim, much more realistic than any of the SH series. I had forgotten how much staring at a green waterfall display could hold my interest...:ping:

Different philosophy however.

I would love to see a next gen DW, with graphics and a full 3d interior as in SH5, but I am not holding my breath...:ping:
That's what I mean

[convoy hunter]

Keep it installed. 3.10 should be out in a few weeks.

Unfortunately some of the compartments you see in full 3d in SH5, if the same treatment was done to modern subs in DW2 SCS would need to shoot anyone who played the game. :O:
They could do it less real in the 3d

[Delareon]

Would be very nice to have interiors in a Modern Subsim. I miss the feeling of "sitting inside the submarine". However, regardless of full interiors or old fashioned graphics, we can be happy IF some company will produce any modern subsim at all, no matter which graphics or what kind of "realism".

[Bilge_Rat]

They could do it less real in the 3d

I think the issue with modeling the full boat is that certain sections, like the reactor section, are still classified.

Modeling the command room only, as in sh3/4, should not be an issue, since many photos are available. For example, USS Seawolf:

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/9865/seawolf001.jpg

[convoy hunter]

As in sh5 they could leave some compartments out.

[Frying Tiger]

668i had a 3D control room where you could "move" from station to station.

What kind of gameplay purpose would the interior serve? I can think of a few things beyond "this is cool!", but it would be very costly to create. I don't have SH5 (yet) but I gather they have an RPG/special crew abilities thing going on with the 3D interior. Would that be something desirable in a modern sim? Would that make it less "hard-core", and is that a good or a bad thing?

I suppose in DW being able to slap the Sonar Sup upside the head when he can't ID a contact would be a feature I'd like... (grin)

A Wii version of the CSS Hunley would be cool... gotta crank the prop with your Wiimote, and hand pump the ballast tanks dry... now THAT's a reason to have an interior in a sub!

[Bilge_Rat]

What kind of gameplay purpose would the interior serve? I can think of a few things beyond "this is cool!", but it would be very costly to create. I don't have SH5 (yet) but I gather they have an RPG/special crew abilities thing going on with the 3D interior. Would that be something desirable in a modern sim? Would that make it less "hard-core", and is that a good or a bad thing?


From a pure realism point of view, a 3d interior is just fluff. Traditionally, flight sims, sub sims, land combat sims were all 2d and no one complained that the results were not true to life.

What 3d gives you is greater immersion, a feeling that you are there. That is why flight sims have moved to a full 3d environment.

In a 2d subsim like DW, you will spend most of your time at the NAV map collating the reports. In a 3d subsim like SH5, you will spend most of your time in the 3d command room collating the reports. It adds nothing to the realism, but adds immensely to the game play experience.

However its clear that creating even one 3d command room for a modern sub would be a major project. You just have to compare the photo of the Seawolf Helm station above with this screenshot of the helm station in a 1940 U-Boat to see how far technology has come in 70 years:

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1388/pedestal009.jpg

On the other hand, how cool would it be if this was what the sonar station looked like...

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/239/losangeles001pa.jpg

"Conn, Sonar, I have a new contact bearing..." :ping:

[Molon Labe]

668i had a 3D control room where you could "move" from station to station.

What kind of gameplay purpose would the interior serve? I can think of a few things beyond "this is cool!", but it would be very costly to create. I don't have SH5 (yet) but I gather they have an RPG/special crew abilities thing going on with the 3D interior. Would that be something desirable in a modern sim? Would that make it less "hard-core", and is that a good or a bad thing?

I suppose in DW being able to slap the Sonar Sup upside the head when he can't ID a contact would be a feature I'd like... (grin)

A Wii version of the CSS Hunley would be cool... gotta crank the prop with your Wiimote, and hand pump the ballast tanks dry... now THAT's a reason to have an interior in a sub!

I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of having some sort of accounting of crew proficiency from platform to platform, but it's definitely a "step down" for this to take the form of upgrades that can be won or purchased (like the 40-knot-prop of 688I, e.g.). I'd prefer something more along the lines of Combat Mission where units have a level of proficiency that can be set in the editor. In the DW/FC context, you could break it down by warfare area (and damage control), and that level could be indicative of where a ship/crew is on its training/deployment cycle or just where it's from and how well that country trains, or just that some crews (Battle E) are better than others (Hartford).

I'm trying to think of a way a 3D interior would be useful, but I'm scratching my head. I guess you could use it to "check on" the progress of individual crew training, but that would require an entirely new campaign engine (and concept!) and even if you did it, it would only be "so" interesting. But I guess that's the difference between the "tactical" customer and the "RPG/Cinematic" customer.

Love the Hunley idea though.


EDIT: Just saw Bilge Rat's reply, and it's a great point--more visually/aurally realistic stations would definitely ratchet up the intensity and immersion and make for a better experience.. Again, the difference in thinking between the customer types.... I'm thinking in terms of features and accuracy of the simulation, Bilge is thinking of the "feel" of the experience.

[Frying Tiger]

I love the immersion of having 3D interiors and crew in combat vehicles... We had an animated pilot in the original Spitfire model I built for World War II Online, but we ended up removing him because we didn't have the financial resources to put something that complicated in all our vehicles. It's a HUGE cost added to a simulation game, especially one with multiple vehicles and stations. You also need to do a good job of modeling and animating the crew to stay out of the "uncanny valley". I find the guys in SH4 a bit creepy at times, even though they're very well done!

So what I'm trying to get at is I think modeling the interior points towards a different kind of game than a straight simulation. The interior modeling and animation, if done realistically, would likely end up being the single biggest cost of developing the game, so it would need to have a gameplay importance equal to that effort. I've given this quite a bit of thought over the years in my various jobs, and it's interesting to see games like SH5 and the design decisions the dev team made.

[Delareon]

The Gameplay importance is easy. Its an RPG Element of course, but thats nothing bad. And i think you get more customers if u can provide some 3d interiors filled with life. Just because of the eye candy.
Think about that point: how many customers did a sim like DW scare away just because of the plain loveless mechanical style?

[convoy hunter]

The Gameplay importance is easy. Its an RPG Element of course, but thats nothing bad. And i think you get more customers if u can provide some 3d interiors filled with life. Just because of the eye candy.
Think about that point: how many customers did a sim like DW scare away just because of the plain loveless mechanical style?
That's right

[Frying Tiger]

The Gameplay importance is easy. Its an RPG Element of course, but thats nothing bad. And i think you get more customers if u can provide some 3d interiors filled with life. Just because of the eye candy.
Think about that point: how many customers did a sim like DW scare away just because of the plain loveless mechanical style?

DW has some very nice looking, useful, 2D stations with attractive art. The TMA station on the FFG is seriously cool. The 3D graphics were behind where most games were when the game was released, and look even older now. Both 688i and Sub Command used the same interfaces, and sold well in their day. I'd say it was more of an obsolescence problem rather than a loveless one! (My personal point of view; I was a player like you guys when DW was released, I joined the company after it came out.)

It's not easy to tell how many customers were scared away by the visual style vs. the technical gameplay. Or because there wasn't the big publisher Electronic Arts behind the distribution.

I'd sure love to work on a full up 3D interior DW, with gameplay RPG elements to support it. But with a dispassionate look at how much time and resources it would take vs. the expected return on the investment, it's a hard sell to any publisher or company. No luck so far.(sigh)

[Delareon]

Maybe the interiors itself are just a part of the story. You will also need the possibility of some cinematic style missions (which remembers the customer of films like hunt for red october for example). The reality deliveres many other ideas about good missions, you "just" have to present them well enough. And even then its hard to tell if a subsim can ever be succesfull enough to attract a publisher. Even most of my friends would stop reading and step over to another game if they read something about a submarine.

I personally would love to play such a game but most of the other gamers wouldnt, and thats seems to be the point about that we can be happy if a publisher ever will release a modern subsim, no matter if graphic or "realism" is good or bad. Just like a big sign: "Attention! No money inside" for every publisher.

[Molon Labe]

DW has some very nice looking, useful, 2D stations with attractive art. The TMA station on the FFG is seriously cool.

Maybe your dev team spent too much time making it look cool instead of making it functional. It's useless for anything further than 5000 yards or so (and by then you have it on active sonar anyways, which makes it nearly 100% useless). And even if the contact is in "range" it's much harder to use than the sub-TMA stations.

See? See!? This is what happens when you put form ahead of function!

[Frying Tiger]

Maybe your dev team spent too much time making it look cool instead of making it functional. It's useless for anything further than 5000 yards or so (and by then you have it on active sonar anyways, which makes it nearly 100% useless). And even if the contact is in "range" it's much harder to use than the sub-TMA stations.

See? See!? This is what happens when you put form ahead of function!

And I would expect any RPG elements/3D interiors to have similar complaints about them. This is why I'm curious as to what actual gameplay purpose a 3D interior could serve that wouldn't alienate hard-core naval simulation players, or if the gain of non-hardcore players would be so vast it wouldn't matter. Very few "immersion" features have much effect on gameplay beyond making it harder, or more time consuming, to get information. Or they take control out of the player's hands and give it to an AI crewman, who then must be managed to get the desired result.

Personally, I think a crew management game with 3D interiors and a high level of immersion would be cool as all get out... (but I don't think I'd like "Dangerous WatersVille(TM)" on Facebook!)

I wonder if SH5 on iPhone will be any fun. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

[Bilge_Rat]

well obviously the 3d interior would be there to attact the less hardcore players.

I still occasionally play DW and am perfectly happy with the simulation since I enjoy realistic submarine simulations and modern naval warfare. To me what is under the hood (like a decent underwater sound propagation system) is more important than the eye candy. However, the number of simmers who will buy what is basically a 2d sim is small. (although if you guys want to put out a DW2, let me know when I can pre-order :ping:)

If it is done right, a 3d interior allows you to satisfy the hardcore sim player while still attracting more casual players.

Obviously, the best example of that is IL-2. When it was released in 2001, many people thought the flight sim market was dead, especially for a flight sim focusing on the Eastern front. Yet that game proved there was a market for a sim which was drop dead gorgeous (at the time) as well as very realistic.

Just as obviously, it is very much a balancing act as you can see with the entire Silent Hunter series which has managed to displease hardcore players who find it a bit light, without really attracting the more casual gamers.

[Diopos]

...
I wonder if SH5 on iPhone will be any fun. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

No you're not!


:)

[convoy hunter]

thats true.

[Hawk66]

Very few "immersion" features have much effect on gameplay beyond making it harder, or more time consuming, to get information. Or they take control out of the player's hands and give it to an AI crewman, who then must be managed to get the desired result.



Personally, I miss the that 'just being captain' role since some AI crew stations are limited (especially Sonar crew).

I think that's one reason why non-hardcore players might be reluctant to try out DW.